The Autocrat at the Breakfast TableCosimo, Inc., 2005 M11 1 - 340 pages You may set it down as a truth which admits of few exceptions, that those who ask your opinion really want your praise, and will be contented with nothing else.-from The Autocrat of the Breakfast TableA superb example of a literary form that has long since fallen into disuse, this seriocomic one-sided conversation with the dictatorial "autocrat" was originally published in segments in the Atlantic Monthly magazine in 1857 and 1858. The unnamed speaker offers an entertainingly rambling series of observations on everything from the odd things that children believe to the unexpected benefits of old age, from the divide between the creative and the scholarly to a recommendation for drinking as a vice. An insightful and frequently hilarious discourse on American civic life, this is a forgotten classic of playful liberal intellectualism.OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (1809-1894) was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard. Though he trained as a physician, he is best known for his verse, and was one of the most beloved poets of the 19th century. A regular contributor to the Atlantic Monthly, he also wrote novels. After his death, his son, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. |
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American elm asphyxia beneath Benjamin Franklin better boarders bombazine brain call John chair Chambered Nautilus cheroot comes commonly conversation Cotton Mather course dandyism dear divinity-student Doctor of Divinity dream dull English elm eyes face fact falchion fancy feel feet flowers give green grow hand Harvard College head hear heard heart Houyhnhnms human hundred intellectual lady laugh lecture literary living long path look man's mean meerschaum mind morning nature never o'er old age old gentleman opposite OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES once pass perhaps person play pleasant poem poets poor Professor remarks remember round rowlocks schoolmistress seen sentiment smile sometimes soul speak spring stone story suppose sweet talk tell things thought tion told tree truth turned verses voice walk waves woman words write young fellow youth
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Page 94 - This is the ship of pearl, which poets feign Sails the unshadowed main, The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings, In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Page 90 - I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, — but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.
Page 306 - If it please the king, and if I have found favor in his sight, and the thing seem right before the king, and I be pleasing in his eyes, let it be written to reverse the letters devised by Haman the...
Page 95 - Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll ! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
Page 254 - Thoroughbrace, bison-skin, thick and wide ; Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide Found in the pit when the tanner died. That was the way he "put her through.
Page 66 - And is there nothing yet unsaid, Before the change .appears? Remember, all their gifts have fled With those dissolving years." "Why, yes;" for memory would recall My fond paternal joys; "I could not bear to leave them all — I'll take — my — girl — and — boys.